SOUNDING OFF:

In a recent blog post, Mayor Eric Bever stated there is no “Unified Theory of Improvement” in response to posts critical of the “Improvers’” alleged plans for Costa Mesa’s Westside. I certainly hope that is true, because local blogger and longtime Westside improvement advocate M.H. Millard has come up with a doozy of a strategy to “improve” Costa Mesa: make it disappear by merging Costa Mesa with Newport Beach.

This latest scheme by a self-anointed “Improver” makes Bever’s statement timely. Just who are these “Improvers,” and what do they want to do to Costa Mesa (besides remove it from the map)? Millard has posted a platform of sorts on his blog, but we have no way of knowing whether that is the “Improver” platform, simply because no one will confirm.

The anonymous “Improvers” on the Daily Pilot blogs routinely insult Councilwoman Katrina Foley and anyone else they disagree with, while using pseudonyms. They accuse Westside businesses of everything from hiring illegal immigrants to causing cancer — all without a shred of evidence.

People who invest in Costa Mesa by owning property and businesses but who have the nerve to live elsewhere are accused of being land barons who perpetuate slum conditions. They promote the use of eminent domain to free the Westside of its alleged shackles and replace businesses that employ people and pay taxes with gated communities that look pretty and will attract “gentry.” They constantly refer to our allegedly horrid demographics and speak of the need to improve them, but never quite spell out just how we should do such a thing.

As far as the “Improvers” are concerned, Costa Mesa is a terrible place to live or work, and is in desperate need of salvation in the form of Newport Beach.

Nonsense. Costa Mesa is a vibrant, dynamic city that is the heart of Orange County. We have the preeminent performing arts venues, the preeminent shopping venue, universities, colleges, a law school, the finest municipal golf courses, the county fairgrounds, a thriving commercial/industrial core with some of the nation’s most recognizable companies, and beautiful, safe neighborhoods and parks. We have a dynamic municipal government that is truly responsive to its constituents. We have a proactive and experienced police department and one of the best fire departments in the state.

The City Council has done a spectacular job. Closure of the job center was a necessary move, as was drawing attention to the large presence of illegal immigrants. The controversial proposal to train CMPD officers in immigration led to an ICE agent stationed in our jail — a fantastic development that has identified more than 520 illegal immigrants and removed 360.

We have seen the approval of major new developments, thousands of housing units, new freeway off-ramps and a crackdown on shoddy condo conversions. The Westside zoning overlay, designed to foster “an organic, market-driven process” for improving the Westside, as Bever commented in a blog, will help revitalize the Westside. We have also seen the transformation of 19th and 17th streets into attractive new thoroughfares, and new developments in parks and recreation facilities.

We have more to address, such as substandard housing and commercial parcels, and our gang problem. We need to get Newport’s traffic out of our downtown. I’d like to see the traffic barriers placed on certain Westside streets to deter gang activity removed immediately. We are not that besieged city.

Costa Mesa is a city on the move, despite the constant negative drumbeat of the anonymous “Improvers.”

ROB DICKSON is a Costa Mesa resident.